Stress: 5-minute letting go meditation, during a break

About this practice

For the times during a break when stress takes up more room than you would like — 5 minutes, letting go. A guided session of about 5 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: stress

Stress is a load that does not come off. Muscle tension accumulates in the shoulders, jaw and gut, and the body stops returning to baseline between demands.

It tends to show up as:

• Shoulders sitting up near the ears
• Short temper over small things
• Waking already tired

Short practices work on the physical part of the load. They do not remove the demands, but they stop the body storing all of them.

Doing this on a break

• Leave the room if you can
• Do not start anything else in the same gap
• Set a timer so the break has an end

A break spent half-engaged with a screen is not much of a break. Guard the whole five minutes.

How letting go works

Letting go is about loosening grip rather than dropping things. It works on the effort attached to a problem — the holding, rehearsing and bracing — which is separable from the problem itself.

• Pick one thing you are gripping and loosen a single finger
• Release the effort with the exhale, not the issue
• Set down temporarily; you can pick it up again after

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Let the floor take your weight through your feet, and stop holding yourself up for a second.
2. 0:15Ask yourself what you could stop holding for the next sixty seconds. That one is a good start.
3. 0:31Let the rhythm of your breathing set the pace, not the words.
4. 0:44Let your sense of the room shrink down to just your body and the surface you're on.
5. 0:59Notice the small gap after each exhale. Rest there for half a second.
6. 1:12Let the breath be slow enough that you can hear it, just barely.
7. 1:25Notice your breathing, without changing it.
8. 1:35Feel the front of your chest. Notice it rise and fall once.
9. 1:48Let the whole of your right foot be heavy.
10. 1:59Stay here a little longer.
11. 2:08You have been carrying this competently for a while. A few minutes off will not undo that.
12. 2:23If you're replaying a conversation, let it play. It'll finish on its own.
13. 2:36Imagine softening the edges of the low-grade alarm of being stretched thin. Not erasing it, just letting the sharp parts go a degree softer.
14. 2:55When the load you are carrying arrives, name it once, quietly, and go back to the breath. Naming is not fixing, and that is fine.
15. 3:14Let your belly rise first, then your chest, then the tops of your lungs.
16. 3:28There is a part of you that has handled hard moments before. That part is here now, even if it is quiet.
17. 3:46Notice the difference between a thought and the space around it.
18. 3:58I'll be quiet for a moment. Stay with the breath.
19. 4:10With each exhale, let a little of the effort go. Not the problem — just the effort.
20. 4:25Notice your feet on the floor. That's where you start from.
21. 4:37No rush to move on.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.